


Sometimes These Things Just Happen

by DoctorClown



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: 2 martins, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Angst, Canon Asexual Character, EVERYTHING GOES WRONG, Fluff, I cant stress this enough that bad things will happen suddenly and with no warning, M/M, Not A Happy Ending, Slow Burn, Time Travel, Web! Martin, just pain, no joy here, not really a time travel fix-it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:22:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28042356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoctorClown/pseuds/DoctorClown
Summary: Someone -or something- was living in the Archives. Turns out, that thing is Martin Blackwoods evil clone who claims to be from the future.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 12
Kudos: 44





	1. Someone's not paying rent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone has been living in the archives.

Someone -- or something -- had been living in the Archives.

The assistants had assumed, at first, that it was simply Jon overworking, despite daily prodding from Martin to go home. It seemed likely enough. A few granola bar wrappers left crumpled in the breakroom, the cot in the storage room slept on, a few statements in a place they had not been the day before. All small things probably done by an Archivist who was too eager to work. And so that was that. Tim would sometimes complain about a statement he was supposed to be looking into that he knew for sure had been on his desk when he had left the day before, only for it to turn up in Jon’s office or the storage room. Martin and Sasha would clean up any loose garbage found in the break room, and the three of them would all constantly remind (pester was more like it) Jon to go home at a decent hour.

This was how things went, at least until Jon had to go into the storage room one day to retrieve a statement. He left the storage room frowning, whispering about something being “inappropriate for the workplace.”

Sasha ignored him at first, simply assuming he was once again complaining about Martin's habit of making tea for the Archive employees using up time that could be used for work. She continued to work on the current statement --something about some man babysitting a coffin-- that is, until he stopped in front of her desk instead of going back to his office.

“Are you the one who spent the night in the Archives?” he asked her, still frowning.

Sasha looked up from her computer and now she too frowned.

“What?”

Jons frown deepened.

“The cot I keep in the storage room for especially late nights has been recently slept in, and that person decided they had no need to clean up after themselves,” he scoffed. “I suppose you would be more the type to clean up after yourself, so it must be Tim, he would do such a thing, or maybe Martin, god that man can’t do anything right-”

“We thought it was you who was spending the night.” Sashas look of confusion had turned into something a bit more grim, yet a spark shone in her eyes. She was excited, how could she not be? Her whole life, she had craved something much more exciting than the fairly normal life she led. An adventure. She read books, played games, watched movies and tv shows, and there was always something there called out to her. That was part of the reason she had joined the Magnus Institute in the first place. For the adventure. Not that she had gotten around to much actual adventure so far. Sure, working in the artifact storage was bad --and God did she hate it-- but it still wasn’t what she was looking for. Maybe this problem would finally give her what she wanted. And yeah, it was probably just a homeless person who had found their way in, but even that had some excitement to it.

“What?” Jon asked, snapping Sasha away from her thoughts. “Are you quite sure Tim or Martin haven’t been kicked from their apartments or something?” He continued to frown.

Sasha shook her head. “The three of us thought it was you, and those two wouldn’t have any reason to lie about this.”

It was then that Martin came into the room, balancing three mugs of hot tea in his hands. He greeted them with a smile, which quickly fell away when he saw the worried looks on their faces.

“Wh-what’s wrong?” He shifted nervously in his spot. “D-did I, er, do something... wrong?”

“Not in this case, at least that we know of,” Jon answered.

Martin let out a sigh of relief, before once again becoming nervous.

“So, uh… what is wrong?”

Sasha took a small sip of her tea. It was hot, sure, but delicious, as it always was when Martin made it.

“Someone is living in the Archives.”

“We don’t quite know that yet,” Jon grumbled.

As the two assistants filled Jon in on everything that had happened in the past week involving the new resident of the Magnus Institutes Archive, Sasha texted Tim to let him know what was going on. He replied with a terrible joke about a homeless man living in the Archives, as well as letting her know that he was almost back.

Jon, Martin, and Sasha sipped their tea as they waited for Tim to get back. Every inch of the Archives seemed to be alive with noise and activity, and the trio jumped at every little creak. They felt like they were being watched, and although they always felt like that while in the Archives, this was more so than usual.

Martin and Sasha tried a few times to start conversations, but each attempt was brought down by some snappy remark from Jon.

Jon himself mentioned that the three needed to actually get work done, but he never acted on it, and the other two didn’t either.

And so they sat, until Tim showed up after half an hour, bringing with him sandwiches for each of them.

Jon had decided that there was not enough evidence that someone was living in the Archives. Despite the arguing from his assistants, he told them that he simply did not think that a few misplaced statements and crumpled bed sheets would be enough proof to constitute a stakeout or something else of the kind. His opinion stood until a few days later, when he came in one morning to find a shoe sitting under his desk for some reason.

He called a meeting immediately after that.

After quite a bit of arguing and debating over what they should do in this particular situation, it was decided that two of them would spend the night and try to catch the Archives new resident. Everyone immediately jumped to the opportunity to volunteer, which did not make things easier to figure out.

Jon tried to convince them that, as the Archivist, he had first say in what happened in his Archives. Which is to say he was their boss and they had to listen to him. They did not.

After quite a lot of bickering, Martin said: “Why don’t we all... stay?”

“Like a slumber party?” Tim snickered.

Jon rolled his eyes and shook his head.

“No, Martin, that would attract too much attention,” he said in an annoyed tone.

“R-right, sorry,” Martin stammered in embarrassment.

In the end, they just played rock-paper-scissors.

Jon scoffed.

“Of course I get stuck with the most useless person here,” he said after he and Martin were declared the winners of rock-paper-scissors.

Martin flushed and stared at his hands. He picked at his nails.

Sasha gave him a sympathetic look as Tim complained about the game “being rigged.”

Jon stood up and shooed his assistants out of his office.

“Now, go get real work done,” he said as he closed his office door behind them.

Tim pulled Sasha aside.

“You're not going home tonight, are you?” He asked.

“No. You?”

He grinned.

“Absolutely not.”

At the end of the day, Tim and Sasha packed up their things and pretended to go home. Instead, they went across the street to a small cafe. There they ordered two coffees, black coffee for Sasha and an extremely sugary cold drink that could hardly be considered coffee for Tim.

The two sat side by side on a bench outside the Magnus institute. Sasha leaned her head on Tims shoulder. Time seemed to melt away as they sat there in each other's company. They had left the Institute at six o’clock, and yet when Sasha looked at her phone what seemed like only five minutes later, the clock read a quarter to midnight.

Sasha and Tim were struggling to refrain from giggling as they crept through the Archives to Jons office door.

Inside, they could hear the faint sound of pen on paper.

Sasha purposefully stepped on a creaky floor board, causing the pen to stop moving across the paper.

A few seconds later the door opened to reveal Jonathon Sims with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders, brandishing a lamp in his hands, as if he were to use it as a weapon. He jumped back upon seeing Tim and Sasha, tripped on his blanket, and fell onto the floor. He quickly stood up, brushing himself off, but the damage was done.

In the now wide open door, Tim shook with laughter. Sasha giggled beside him. Even Martin was struggling to hold back a grin.

Jon swore under his breath, all the while glaring at his assistants.

“If you would kindly tell me what you two are doing here, that would be--”

 _Crash_.

Something fell in the back of the Archives.

No, something was knocked over in the back of the Archives.

Martin was the first to act, and the others had quite a hard time trying to keep up as he ran ahead, deep into the Archives.

Then he screamed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A time travel au because I can't get enough of them.
> 
> This is my first fanfic, also I'm American, so apologies if it needs work :)


	2. SLUMBER PARTY

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon is a prick but don't worry there's also fluff.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Warnings:  
> )Panic Attack  
> )Spiders

Jon had almost missed the way his assistants had been treating him this past week. They weren’t too obvious about it, and of course he was too distracted by the horrible state of the Archives to even think about their little worried comments and looks, urging him to eat, drink water, go home at a timely hour, and, god knows, taking care of himself becoming more and more constant as the week progressed. No, he had very little time to do anything, much less to worry about any of that. He was more worried about the increase of spiders. There were more in his office and, as far as he could tell, the rest of the Archives as well. He’d have to talk to Elias about that, incase of an infestation.

Jon searched his desk for the statement he swore he had left there the night before. He cursed under his breath, frustrated at this sudden obstacle in his plans.

He stood and made his way to the door. Sticking his head out of his office, he called out to Sasha and Martin, as Tim was out looking into a statement. 

“Have either of you seen the statement of Amy Patel?”

Sasha shook her head, but Martin spoke up.

“I, er, I think I saw it in the, uh, the storage room,” he stammered. 

Scoffing in annoyance, Jon fully left his office and made his way to the storage room. 

At first he didn’t register the untidy cot in the corner, as he rummaged around the shelves trying to find the correct statement. It was when he nearly tripped on the corner of a blanket laying half on the ground and half on the cot that he actually took in the fact that someone had slept in that bed. 

Jon's mind immediately shot to Tim possibly bringing in one of his dates for a late night session of god knows what. He shivered and tried to think of any other possibilities. 

Eventually he settled on one of his assistants being too embarrassed to admit they had been kicked out of their flat, and so had secretly been staying the night. 

How unprofessional of that person. 

Feeling as content as he could get with that answer, Jon decided to stop by Sasha's desk to clarify, just in case. If it was in fact true that one of the assistants was simply staying there, he would approach them on the issue and sort it out. If it was that something else was happening, then that would be a whole other matter, and he would have to figure out some way to deal with it. 

“Are you the one who spent the night in the Archives?” he asked.

And it was all downhill from there. 

Learning that it was not his assistants that had slept in the storage room, that they had thought that it was him who was staying there, and that it had been going on for about a week, certainly did a number on Jon. He did his best not to show it, but the thought of some unknown person living in his workspace scared him far more than he would like to admit. He was constantly on the lookout for any sign of this intruder in the Archives. He was so distracted looking for signs of a person, that he did not notice when a spider crawled dangerously close to his hand, causing him to yelp and fall out of his chair. 

It was after that little incident that Jon decided to give up the facade of being a skeptic (in this situation, at least), albeit a bit stubbornly. He spent the next few days trying to come up with a lie for why he suddenly thought there was enough evidence to prove someone living there. He was not very successful. Thankfully, when a shoe showed up under his desk that did not belong to him, he found himself a solid enough reason and quickly gathered the others. 

Jon was not happy about being saddled with Martin. Of all the people he had to spend a...a stakeout with, it had to be the most incompetent person he’s ever met. He wanted to catch this person living in the Archives, and with his luck, Martin will most likely end up tripping over his own feet and ruin any chances of them solving this mystery.

So no, he was not happy to be holed up in his office with Martin Blackwood.

The man in question was standing awkwardly by the door. The two of them had left it open just enough to see through, and were taking turns keeping an eye out for the intruder. 

As they were keeping the light off in case it alerted the intruder, Jon had to use a pen light as he began sorting through paperwork. Soon enough he was lost in the paperwork, and time slipped by.

“Jon?”

Jon was shaken from his daze by this. Martin had been saying something.

“What?” He snapped, annoyed that he had been interrupted. 

Martin flushed. “S-sorry,” he said. Jon rolled his eyes. If Martin spent less time apologizing, he could get far more done. “I just, uh, i-it’s your turn.”

Jon nodded and made his way to the door, accidentally brushing against Martin as he slid past him. 

Keeping one eye on the door, he watched his assistant sit on the floor against the wall, pull out a notebook and pen, and open the notebook to an empty page. Instead of writing, he hovered the pen over the page and stared at it, lost in thought. 

Jon stared at him, curious about what he could be doing. Part of him was also annoyed that Martin wasn’t working on the statements he had been assigned, god knows he needed the practice. But mostly, he was curious. What was going on in his mind? Surely this man was not nearly as incompetent and unintelligent as he had initially thought? 

He tore his gaze away as Martin glanced up at him. Jon hoped he hadn’t seen him staring at him. That certainly would make things awkward. 

Martin looked back down and wrote something in his notebook. 

Jon turned his focus back to the door and tried to ignore his assistant.

It was about 11 o’clock when the spider incident happened. 

It was Martin's turn on the door, and so of course Jon was working. He reached absentmindedly for a stack of statements, and was met with the feeling of something rather large crawling onto the back of his hand. A spider. A big spider. 

Jon leapt up, biting his tongue to keep from shouting, and flung his hand wildly about. The spider flew off, hitting the wall with a thud. 

Still, Jon waved his hand about. It wasn’t there anymore, he knew that, but he could still feel the way it had clung to his hand. 

Something warm wrapped around him. He didn’t think too hard about it. He felt his breathing slow and realized he had in fact been hyperventilating. 

It took him about 15 minutes to fully realize what was happening. Martin was hugging him. Martin had seen him panicking and had decided to hug him. And Jon had let him. 

It wasn’t that bad though. Martin's hugs were... nice. It was simply unprofessional.

He tensed and Martin's arms fell away. Part of him yelled for the comfort back, hated that he just had to tense up so soon.

He felt Martin next to him, felt the worry coming off of him in waves. Yet Martin didn’t say anything, and Jon was thankful for the silence. 

When Martin finally spoke, his voice was calm and gentle.

“Are you better?” He asked. Not “Are you ok?” or “What’s wrong?” “Are you ok?” Something about that question made it feel much better than the other options. 

Jon nodded. “Spider.” He had to force the word at.

Martin didn’t ridicule him, didn’t comment on what many would and have called an overreaction. Most people were scared of spiders, but Jon was terrified to a point that many people thought grown men should not be.

“Where?” Martin said instead. Jon pointed in the direction the spider had hit the wall, and Martin stood and made his way over.

“Nothing here anymore,” he said, looking around the area. He looked back over at Jon, and blushed for some reason. “Do you, uh, need anything?”

Jon thought for a second, before gesturing toward his desk. “Bottom draw, under the staplers, there’s a blanket.”

“Can’t imagine why you would keep a blanket in the office,” Martin said, giving him a weird look.

Jon felt himself blush. 

“I, er, I stay a bit, uh, late… from time to time,” he mumbled. 

Martin snorted. Pulling the blanket out of the drawer, he wrapped it around Jon's shoulders. Jon supposed that for whatever reason, this must have been a bit awkward for Martin, as the man's face was bright red. 

Martin started walking toward the door to keep watch again.

“C-can you sit with me?” Jon blurted out. His assistant froze and looked over in shock. “Uh-unless you don’t want to,” he added on quickly. 

Martin turned an even brighter shade of red.

“Y-yeah, I, uh, I can sit with you.”

The two sat on the floor in silence, just enjoying each others company. 

A creak from outside the office door made Jon jump. Martin looked up, wide-eyed. Jon put a finger to his lips and motioned toward the door. 

Blanket still draped across his shoulders, he crept to the door, Martin right behind him. He placed his hand on the door knob, and despite every part of his being shouting at him not to, he flung it open. 

The sight before him was… frustrating. 

Sasha and Tim stood there, grinning at them. 

Jon was not pleased. Of course he wasn’t. They had as a group decided on a plan, and here they were ruining that plan. Hell, there was no way the person (or thing, although he did not want to think about that) would reveal themself now. 

“If you would kindly tell me what you two are doing here, that would be--” he began, only to be interrupted by a loud crash in the back of the archives. 

Maybe they would be able to find the intruder after all. 

Jon felt himself freeze. He was yelling at his legs to work, to run, run to the source of the crash, to run from it. 

He didn’t though. Instead, Martin (Martin of all people) was the first one to act. As he sprinted to the back of the archives, Jon realized what was happening, and he, Tim, and Sasha ran to catch up. 

Except they couldn’t quite make it there before they heard Martin cry out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heyo folks, sorry this chapter took so long, I've been pretty distracted the past few weeks and couldn't quite figure out what to write. Hopefully the next chapter doesn't take nearly as long.
> 
> TMAs back from hiatus and I still haven't listened to the new episode because frankly, I am terrified of it ending.


End file.
